Nuggets Power Rankings: No. 14, Nikola Jokic
The Denver Nuggets’ preseason roster includes 19 players, and the team will try to figure out which 15 of them deserve a shot during the regular season throughout the team’s seven-game exhibition slate.
But, for now, how do these players stack up? We polled our staff writers and editor at Nugg Love to get a consensus power ranking of every player on the roster, and we’ll be releasing one player each day from October 5 to 23, starting from No. 19 and finishing at No. 1.
Nikola Jokic is a Serbian big man who was a second-round pick of the Nuggets in 2014. The 20-year-old is now coming stateside after three years playing professionally in Serbia. What sort of player is he? How can he help the Nuggets this season? Read on to find out.
Who is Nikola Jokic?
The 6’10” Jokic started playing professionally at 17 years old in 2012 with Mega Leks of the Adriatic League in Serbia. He improved significantly throughout his three years, ending in an Adriatic League MVP award in 2014-15.
He didn’t play for the Nuggets in Summer League last summer, but he came after this year and played pretty well, averaging 8.0 points and 6.2 rebounds per game. The Nuggets signed him in late July to a four-year, approximately $5.5 million contract, per Spotrac, and now he is hoping to secure a big role with the team for the 2015-16 season.
Strengths
Jokic’s feel for the game is phenomenal. He seems to fit well within a team concept, passing the ball extremely well and making smart decisions. His jumper is very smooth and he has nice touch on his hook shot in the lane. On the offensive end, his game is reminiscent of the Memphis Grizzlies’ Marc Gasol. Gasol was on the All-NBA First Team last season, and Jokic is nowhere near that level (yet), but you can see the similarities.
The 250-pounder is an asset on the boards, as he has a knack for positioning himself well for rebounds. At just 20 years old, he has plenty of time to improve.
Weaknesses
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Unfortunately, Jokic is a plodder with almost nonexistent explosiveness.
He can’t switch onto perimeter players on the pick-and-roll and he will have trouble keeping up with any big men who have at least a little bit of quickness, at least to start his career. We could see him get blocked a lot on one end of the floor and dunked on a lot on the other end to start his career.
Gasol, who’s three inches taller than Jokic, also has an intimate knowledge of the game of basketball on both ends of the floor (Jokic is still working towards that on defense) and makes up for mediocre athleticism by understanding angles and timing well. The young Serbian would be wise to watch tape of the Spanish big man and how he patrols the paint, especially on defense.
2015-16 Outlook
Jokic is a safe bet to make the roster, especially after the Nuggets committed to him for at least three years (the fourth season of his contract is a team option).
Also, Jusuf Nurkic’s injury recovery opens up minutes at the big man positions to start the season. If the Nuggets cut Jokic, they’d have only four healthy bigs (Kenneth Faried, Darrell Arthur, J.J. Hickson and Joffrey Lauvergne) to take all those minutes, and none of those guys are true stars who deserve huge minutes. Therefore, Jokic stays.
In fact, the rookie could even start at points this season. Through three preseason games, he’s been amazing, averaging 12.0 points and 5.3 rebounds in just 20.3 minutes on 76.2 percent shooting. I’m predicting he’ll end up playing around 18 minutes this season while averaging eight points and five rebounds.
This No. 14 ranking could look ridiculously low for Jokic at the end of the season, but we’ll conservatively stick him here for now until he shows us more during the regular season.
Note: All statistics are from RealGM unless otherwise indicated.